Tuesday, October 29, 2013

News, Etc.

Allegations of prosecutorial misconduct by Juan Martinez of Maricopa County aren't just limited to the Arias case:

One day at the bench, as the attorneys debated whether to admit a statement about whether Alexander wanted to kill himself, transcripts show Martinez said, “But the thing is that if Ms. Willmott and I were married, I certainly would say, ‘I f---ing want to kill myself.’”

Willmott objected, and two days later at another bench conference, Martinez said to Willmott, “Well, then, maybe you ought to go back to law school.”

Nurmi asked Judge Sherry Stephens to step in, but she did not.

“In my view, that would have been a fine,” Fields said. “I probably would have reported him to the Bar. It shows his bias. It’s just inappropriate.”

To say the least.
_____

When the financial elites of this country screw up, instead of taking responsibility for their own actions, they just have their political henchmen go after everybody else who is not a member of that economic class:

The cuts total $11 billion over the next three years and amount on average to a month’s worth of food assistance. They will mean yet more privation for millions of working people, including the poorest and most vulnerable members of society—children, elderly people, the unemployed, the disabled and new mothers.

That this brutal cut takes place under conditions of continuing mass unemployment and economic slump, with record numbers of people living in poverty and homelessness and hunger on the rise, testifies to the ruthlessness of the American ruling class. The callous indifference of the media and the entire political establishment, beginning with the Obama White House, to the suffering of broad layers of the population is reflected in their virtual silence on the imminent cutback in benefits.